He played piano, and wrote, sang and recorded risqué songs about sex, gay culture, prostitutes, adulterers, intersex people, alcoholics, hedonists, outsiders, predators, and grifters.
[1][2][3] Fletcher came from a privileged family setting of sprawling estates, yachts, race horses, high finance, lavish parties, and opulence.
Tarkington reportedly used the troubled Fletcher family as the inspiration for his 1918 novel The Magnificent Ambersons,[1] which was set in a fictionalized version of Indianapolis and whose plot included a businessman who invested in early automotive technology.
[5] In 1921, his mother killed herself by drinking prussic acid; about an hour later, Bruz's grandmother, distraught over her daughter's death, took her own life in an identical manner.
[12] He performed in glamorous venues, delighting his sophisticated patrons with witty and risqué songs punctuated with salacious patter, clearly influenced by Noel Coward and Cole Porter.
[7] His five-year run at L.A.'s Club Bali, which began in 1935, underscored a bawdy, party-like atmosphere for the city's most outrageous celebrities and notables.
[14] "It was on the Sunset Strip that a tiki lounge called Club Bali opened its doors," wrote historian Jenny Hamel.
"[16] Fletcher and his partner, the noted decorator and set designer Casey Roberts (a three-time Academy Award nominee), lived together as an openly gay couple for years, often hosting salons.
[19] His songs, laced with double-entendres and social satire, included "The Hellish Mrs. Haskell", "Nympho-Dipso-Ego Maniac", "Get It Up, Kitty", and "Lei from Hawaii".
[22] As a chronicler of the demimonde, Bruz spiced these works with details that provided candid glimpses into a world populated by society dowagers, misfits, celebs, addicts, servants, lovers, and eccentrics who reflected a wide variety of sexual orientations and behavior.
[2] "Some of Fletcher's songs sound tailored to carry one set of meanings to heterosexuals and another to gay men, much like Cole Porter's," wrote historian Stuart Timmons.
"[23] Fletcher performed in his Sunset Strip nightclub before audiences including Ronald Reagan, Humphrey Bogart, Howard Hughes and Louise Brooks.